She has the Y

Posted January 28, 2010

Lucille Graves had just retired from DuPont. She was borderline diabetic, and had been dealing with high blood pressure for several years.

“I knew I didn’t want to sit around and watch TV the rest of my life,” said Graves, who joined the Waynesboro YMCA 20 years ago, and is preparing for her 82nd birthday in February by walking 20 miles a week on the treadmills upstairs.

“I try to keep at 3 miles per hour,” said Graves, who attributes her continued good health to her six-day-a-week routine at the Y.

“I’ve had three surgeries since I started,” said Graves, the most recent being a hip replacement that put her in physical therapy for a time.

“And I’ve been able to come back strong all three times,” Graves said.

Including after the hip replacement, which is often a debilitating issue for seniors to try to overcome.

“When the doctor released me after the hip replacement, I told him my workout schedules. He said, You don’t need me. You’ve got the Y,” Graves said. “The therapy people said the same thing. They said, The YMCA is doing you a lot more good than we can do.”

Just as important, maybe even more so, is the relationships that you make when you’re part of the Y family.

“The friendships, the people – when you leave, you say, I’ll see you tomorrow. It just means so much to a senior to have something to hold onto,” Graves said.